Fire's Heartbeat
by Valar Morghulis
Summary: Bella muses on decisions, regrets, and life's joy lost and found. She turned away from Edward's eternal devotion, and chose another; now each beat of her heart confirms her true love. Oneshot. Bella/Jacob.


A merry Christmas to everyone! This was written as a Christmas surprise for my sister, whose presents make everyone else just a little guilty that they didn't put as much effort into giving gifts. Hence this. Enjoy!

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Every night I lie in my husband's arms, waiting for sleep to come to me as it does so easily to him. He can drift away into the depths of unconsciousness within a minute – yet even as he dreams he holds me possessively to his heart. Sometimes he clutches me too tightly, and I feel suffocated within his protective embrace. Sometimes he hugs me too close, and the unnatural heat rolling off his body brings me fevered dreams of shifting, roiling landscapes ablaze with passion – and myself, master of it all. That is the closest I have come to experiencing the werewolf's _change _– yet even in those dreams, as the fiery power fills me, a part of my unconscious mind cries out for ice, cold ice, and the cool marble touch of someone I thought I had forgotten long ago.

Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice.

My husband is a tower of strength, an inferno of lust and love who adores me in a way no other could. When we touch, my skin burns with the exhilaration only his presence can bring; when we fight, the passion I inspire in him is turned against me, and our voices rise in harmony until at last we subside, forgiving and forgetting all.

I never fought with… the other. Did I? My memories fade, and somehow only the happiest escape the passage of time. His hands on mine, a touch as light as silk and as delicate as china. His body, sparkling in the sunlight as Jacob's brown, sun-worn skin never will. His kiss, a whisper promising the perfect and eternal devotion against which Jacob's own affections would seem transient flickers of brightness against an infinity of death.

For a time, there was nothing I could want more. For a time. When he left, I could hardly go on. Why did he leave? Why?

For me. To protect me. To shelter me. To abandon me.

To him, I was as a flower, beautiful and frail, exquisite and vulnerable. Physically, that was true. His concern for my body was admirable – and yet it was not only my body he considered weak. His boundless love rendered me helpless in his eyes. He never believed for a moment that I could ever love him as much as he loved me.

Jacob, though… Jacob knew from the beginning that my heart was truly his. Our is a passionate love, from fiery souls – yet never have I been tempted to lose myself, to immolate in his burning spirit as I would drown in the depths of Edward's eyes. He is mine, as I am his – and though there is a part of him that I know I will never touch, so too is there a hidden cavern of my mind where I linger, occasionally, feeling a haunting sense of loss for the one who could have been my destiny, wherever he is now.

So the nights where I twist and turn, watching in my sleep the running of the wolf pack in which I will never belong… what do they matter, when I can see Jacob, my Jacob, in the lead, his thoughts a blur of rushing air and flashing footsteps and the overwhelming joy of being free? And what of the days when we fight, when emotions rage and angry words fly and hot tears flow? We are not perfect – no, we are not frozen into the eternal stillness of a changeless life. We are alive, vibrant and vivacious; and, even when our arguments were at their hottest, he never left. He never walked away, and neither did I – until eventually we fell again into each other's arms. How can I imagine a life in which Jacob was not there for me always?

I shiver, suddenly chilled. But only for a moment. I am not cold. And as long as his arms are there to encircle me, I will never be cold again. As long as we remain, held together, I will feel the unquenchable warmth of our beating hearts, the heartbeats intertwined, truly alive and full of love to the very last.

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Reviews are love? No, love is the manifestation of reviewing in a reality which doesn't have such easily available green clickable buttons hovering in midair. Eh. You know what I want...


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